Everything Immersive This Week (8/31/23)

We’re wrapping up August with the latest EITW, this time out with some sneak peeks at some of Spooky Season’s most anticipated events, immersive theatre in Japan, an on-the-ground look at the digital immersive at Venice Immersive, the Philly Fringe and more!

If you have a tip email us at [email protected] with the subject line EITW and your picks might make it into our next edition!

ITEM ONE

Knott’s Scary Farm - The Spooky Season Classic Turns 50

Would there even BE a Spooky Season if it wasn’t for Knott's Berry Farm 's Knott's Scary Farm? The OG Haunt, which originated in the OC (that’s Orange County, if you must) is a half century old this year and is trying all kinds of new tricks that will treat guests to some of their most elaborate innovations yet.

IO9’s Sabina Graves has an interview with the Scary Farm creative that touches on the new haunts, remixed classic haunts, and their new interactive lanterns that add a new layer to the scares this year. While over at the Orange County Register there’s an in-depth look at the new Room 13 maze, which takes the immersive theatre vibes of the “Goreing 20’s” scare zone and finally turns it into own maze. Plus: if you want to check all the Scary Farm antics out but not have teenagers in roller shoes scream at you Knott’s will charge you $15 for the honor as part of a new initiative. The “No Boo” necklaces won’t work in the mazes, however, just the Scare Zones.

ITEM TWO

Innovative Immersive Theater In Japan

One of the more exciting things about immersive’s impact on the Performing Arts is how it manifests in different parts of the world. What can be terribly surprising is how the same set of challenges — and opportunities — face makers whether they are in London, New York, or as in this case, Tokyo.

Benjamin Beardsley of Denver’s Itchy-0 takes No Proscenium to Tokyo to explore the methods of Daisydoze, creators of the dynamic Dancing in the Nightmare, with a feature interview with artistic director Yui Takeshima.

ITEM THREE

Venice Immersive First Impressions

The Venice Film Festival is ON, and that means Venice Immersive is up and running with the premiere slate of virtual and augmented reality experiences. We’ve already heard some great buzz out of the festival on Felix & Paul Studio’s Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: The Seven Ravens from friends, but to get a full look there’s only one person to turn to. That would be Voices of VR’s Kent Bye , who has already popped up his Patreon post with impressions on “all 43 immersive storytelling projects.”

Lucky for us, Kent has made this post public, following in a long tradition when he would do threads on ye olde bird site.

ITEM FOUR

LA & London Reviews

The past two weeks of our Review Rundown have both featured work in London & Los Angeles, two of the creative engines of the immersive world. London’s speciality these days is gamified immersive spaces. Sometimes that’s explicitly a game, such as Monopoly Lifesized, but it can also count as unleashing a murder mystery in a theme bar franchise. Meanwhile LA is warming up its Spooky Season with some early out of the gate offerings from local theatre companies focusing on two mainstays of the genre these days: vampires and the open source mythology of The SCP Foundation.

Check out our previous two editions for even more, including the upcoming Peabody Awards Interactive deadline, and a glimpse at the Quest lineup for the Fall.

TRAILHEADS

Philly Fringe Fest’s Immersive Lineup: There’s a lot to explore in the immersive lineup at this year’s Philadelphia Fringe Festival. We’ve already put your eyes on Tea Party at the End of the World in our first EITW, but there’s 87 events that have labeled themselves immersive or interactive.

As always, there’s bound to be some streeeeetching of what those terms mean. (If you want to know what WE mean when we use them, check out our always handy Glossary) . With that said, we’re getting some good vibes off Dora’s Gently Used Dreams Store and Last One Standing and hope to find a few more actually immersive immersives along the way. Festival dates: Sep. 4-24.

Vampire: the Masquerade - Justice: Take the games Dishonored and Assassin’s Creed, transpose them to the legendary World of Darkness setting and put it all in a VR blender and hit “brrrrrrr” and you’ve got what sounds like Justice, the first VR game under the Vampire: the Masquerade banner. Developer Fast Travel Games is no stranger to the broader setting, having adapted the game Wraith into a survival horror piece, but Vampire is the crown jewel of the line having inspired decades of gamers since making a splash in 1989 as a tabletop game. This one is coming out for Quest 2 & 3 and PSVR 2, and is at the top of at least one of our wish-lists this November. Check out Upload VR’s hands-on impressions from Gamescom. $29.99 (Preorder)

Remediation: Introducing the revolutionary self-help program that has transformed the lives of Bots everywhere. With our proven techniques and strategies, you'll learn how to unlock your full potential and live the life you used to always dream? of — even if you don't remember what that was. $25.00. Sep. 13 & 14. SOMERVILLE, MASS

asses.masses: A one-of-a-kind video game experience redefining the boundaries of live performance. Each night audiences follow the epic journey of a herd of unemployed asses trying to get their jobs back in a world set on forgetting them.

CDMX: (En Espa?ol) FREE. Sep. 6-9.

TORONTO : $15.00 - $60.00 Sep. 22 - 24.

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